TCC Podcast #332: Going Viral on Tik Tok and Other Copywriting Adventures with Chloe Barnes

Chloe Barnes is our guest on the 332nd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Chloe is a copywriter and creator coach who made her freelance gig a full-time income. After going viral on a little platform known as TikTok, Chloe has been able to grow her business by building her personal brand. But what makes good content and how can you use the platform to your advantage? Tune into the episode to find out…

You’ll also hear:

• Why she ended up studying abroad in Sweden and how it changed the projection of her career.
• Starting a travel blog and getting a full-time content marketing job out of it.
• How she maintained working a 9-5 and a 5-9.
• Why she ended up on TikTok in the first place.
• How she blew up on TikTok on two different occasions and booked out her calendar.
• Why you need to be okay with the long game and how to be consistent.
• How she builds her personal brand on TikTok rather than her copywriting expertise.
• Her process for posting on TikTok and her content marketing strategy.
• How do you come down from a viral moment?
• What about haters and trolls? What do you do about them?
• Balancing the many ideas that come from quick growth and success.
• Dealing with wrong-fit clients and how to navigate sticky situations.
• How to develop your own style on social media.
• Why you don’t have to pay to get started and how it’s holding you back.

Press play or read the transcript below.

The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:

The Copywriter Think Tank
Kira’s website
Rob’s website
Chloe’s TikTok
The Copywriter Club Facebook Group
The Copywriter Underground
Free month of Brain.FM

Full Transcript:

Rob Marsh:  How long does it take to become an overnight sensation? How much work do you need to put in until something goes viral or your audience starts to find you? And what happens when you finally break through and people want to hear from you? Our guest for this episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast knows the answers to those questions. Copywriter and TikTok sensation, Chloe Barnes, is here to answer those questions and more. We talked about going viral on social media, dealing with haters and trolls, her not exactly strategic approach to creating content and a lot more. So stay tuned because we think you’re going to like this episode.

But before we get to that interview, this podcast is sponsored by the Copywriter Think Tank, that’s our mastermind for copywriters and other marketers who want to do more in their businesses. Whether that’s getting onto a stage, creating a new product, growing the business that you already have, creating a video channel, building an agency, anything like that. Maybe you want to just become the best known copywriter in your niche. That’s the kind of thing that we help copywriters do in the Think Tank. To learn more, visit copywriterthinktank.com and fill out that short application.

And I also need to introduce you to my guest host for this episode, copywriter and business strategist, Jill Wise. Jill has been a previous guest on the podcast, that was episode 235. She’s also a former Think Tank member. She’s an amazing copywriter. Welcome to the show, Jill.

Jill Wise:  Thank you so much for having me. Like I said before we started recording, I was really excited to just hang out with you this morning.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, well I mean, when you’re talking about all the amazing things… Before we started recording the show, telling me all the things going on in your business, I’m like, I wish we had more time now.

Jill Wise:  I mean, maybe I’ll just come back for another episode.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, let’s do that.

Jill Wise:  I’m pitching myself live.

Rob Marsh:  We should definitely do that. I mean, since the last time we recorded you’ve had a baby, your business is still growing and doing amazing. So yeah, you have a lot, I think to add, not just to this conversation, but maybe a future episode.

Jill Wise:  I’m very excited to talk about this though, because right after you sent this over, I obviously went and found her TikTok and her Instagram, and I found the viral videos, and I was starting to reverse engineer everything. I’m really excited to get into it.

Rob Marsh:  Awesome. Cool. Well, first let’s kick off our interview with Chloe Barnes with Kira asking her how she got started as a copywriter.

Chloe Barnes:  I actually started in digital marketing for a university back when I was working in Australia, and I was promoting the student exchange program for the division of business. I did a student exchange when I was in uni, and it was amazing, and that was my first introduction into the world of marketing, something that you really believe in. It just opened up this whole new career path for me, because I originally got my degree in IT and started out as an advisor for a big four company, and really hated it. So once I started in marketing, I moved to the UK and got a job in an SEO agency, and realized that there was this whole other world that I just did not even know existed.

From there on, I just went into various corporate jobs and found myself moving further and further away from copywriting, which is what I seem to always enter as. And people kept telling me I was really good at it, and I loved it. I was freelancing on the side and I thought, “You know what? I need to just go and do this for myself,” because it was by far my favorite part of the job. But the more that you work in corporate, the less you get to do. They keep trying to move you into more marketing roles with campaigns and things, and copywriting is such a small part of the job. And I thought, “No. No, I need to go and do this because this is what I want to be doing.” So yeah, two years ago, I probably just decided to take the leap and start taking on clients for myself, and just snowballed from there.

Rob Marsh:  Okay. I want to know, where did you do your studies abroad?

Chloe Barnes:  I went to Sweden. Yeah, I had a couple of glasses of wine one afternoon and decided to apply for a scholarship, and I applied for two schools in America, in the United States. One was just a throwaway. I was like, “I don’t know where, I’ll just spin the map and see what happens.” And Sweden was the third option that I chose.

Rob Marsh:  Do you speak Swedish?

Chloe Barnes:  No.

Rob Marsh:  Tell us about it. Yeah, share a little bit about that experience. I know this isn’t really what I’m talking to you about, but I’m curious. Sweden is number one or two on my travel list right now.

Chloe Barnes:  Amazing. It’s such a beautiful country and I’m so glad I went there instead of the US, because it’s just, I would never have thought to go there and it ended up being one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had. It was my first time seeing snow. As an Australian we don’t get a lot of it, but I landed in the middle of winter and got a friend… They partner you with a buddy, and it was the first time I’d been overseas, first time being outside of Australia. I was 22, on my own, and it just totally blew my mind. I did the dog sleds, I went on a snowmobile, went to the ice hotel, got to travel on a cruise to Estonia, and just, best thing ever.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, sounds amazing. My father speaks Swedish and one of my best friends speaks Swedish, and have both lived in Sweden for a while. But yeah. Yeah, like I said, it’s on my list.

Chloe Barnes:  Yeah, you do have to go. It’s a beautiful, beautiful country and it’s just… I’ve actually ended up marrying a Fin, so in that family of countries.

Rob Marsh:  Okay. Let me turn this into maybe just a broader question and then we can get back to some of the marketing and copywriting stuff. But just from your experience, how has travel impacted your work and the things that you do, as far as just opening up those kinds of vistas and opportunities?

Chloe Barnes:  Oh, look, travel is probably responsible for the reason why I’m a writer now, to be completely honest. Because when I found out I was going to Sweden, I was like, “Well, of course I’m going to need to start a travel blog because I’m going to be that person.” This was back in the BlogSpot and very, very early WordPress days. So yeah, I started a travel blog and that was what helped me get the job at the SEO agency. And having that travel blog… It was actually through some travel blog of friends that I got introduced to freelance copywriting and actually got a job at a content mill, churning out just blog post upon blog post for these clients. So without travel, without having that connection to writing about my experiences while I was traveling, I probably wouldn’t be where I am today.

Kira Hug:  I’m interested in the transition from working at these corporate jobs and then, you said you wanted to go in, do this for myself. When you decide, okay, I’m going to go full-time, what are some of the steps, the specific steps that you took to make that transition?

Chloe Barnes: It took me much longer than I probably would’ve liked to actually make the leap into doing this for myself full-time. But I think the key for me was, because I have a family, I have kids, I’ve got a house, I’ve got a husband, all that, I needed to do it in a way that made sense for my family. So I worked at my full-time job and freelanced on the side initially, until I could start to see results from my content marketing. Once I started seeing organic generation happening through those channels, I thought, “Okay, I’m comfortable enough now to be able to take a step back from my full-time job and actually go into doing this.”

It was less of a leap of faith and like, “I’m going to make this work.” And more of like, “I’ve built up a comfortable nest, I’ve got this working for me, so now I can take the steps to actually leave.” But it was a really easy transition. The place that I was working at was very, very supportive. So by talking to them and actually working with them, I’ve actually managed to stay on as a contractor with them. So they’ve now become my longest client, which is really fortunate. I’ve had a really supportive journey so far.

Rob Marsh:  Can we talk about that a little bit more deeply? Because I think a lot of people think, “Okay, I’m going to quit my job and become a copywriter.” And sometimes doing that isn’t the smartest thing because now you’ve got to succeed, day one or in the first month, whatever. How long did you take to transition out? And while you were doing it, how were you connecting with clients in a way that it made sense? Obviously you’re not taking on a full load because you have that at work, so talk about that process and how that freelance opportunity grew until you knew it was the right time to leave.

Chloe Barnes:  I’ve always been a self-professed workaholic, so there was a lot of hustle at the start, I’m not going to lie. It was a lot of hard work, a lot of long hours. And you sign off after your 9:00 to 5:00 and then begin your 5:00 to 9:00, so there was a lot of that in the early days. I was very fortunate that I’ve got a supportive family, my son was a bit older, so it wasn’t as hands-on as it was in the beginning. But I think the key was that I was really transparent with my work about what I was doing. I was very keen. They knew that I loved copy and I wanted to get really good at it and work on that full-time, so I had their support in going and starting my own business. And my first clients actually came through my work connections, purely because I was able to be transparent about that.

But I think there’s something that is really romanticized in the freelancing world, quit your 9:00 to 5:00 and go be this freelancer full-time. And nobody talks about the fact that it doesn’t necessarily happen that way, that quickly. And the people who it does happen that way for, they might not have the responsibilities that a lot of us do have. They don’t have the obligations of a mortgage and kids in school, needing stuff. So yeah, I think the whole digital nomad, traveling lifestyle, work from anywhere, it’s fabulous and wonderful, but it’s not the reality for a lot of people. For me it was really important to find a way to do that, that made sense for me.

Kira Hug:  What did your content marketing look like at the time? What were you focused on to put yourself out there and start attracting more clients?

Chloe Barnes:  I started off doing the things that basically appealed to me, which was a lot of memes, a lot of the funnier side of content, because I had always really resonated with humor in marketing and that was kind of where I was specializing in. But then things really started to change for me when short form videos started rising in popularity, and TikTok was becoming more mainstream. I actually got TikTok as a way to… I had to test it because my teenage daughter was asking if she could have it. So I got it and I was like, “Right, if she’s going to be on these apps, I need to understand what they’re all about.” So I downloaded it and started making a couple of videos just to see what it was like, and I ended up going viral and getting 30,000 followers in a month. Yeah, I know, it was pretty crazy.

But that was for a totally unrelated, nothing to do with copywriting, nothing business related. It was just a personal account and I thought, “Okay, so there’s an opportunity here,” so that’s when I started creating video content for my business. And it was crickets for a while, I’m not going to lie. But probably about six months into creating videos consistently, I had one go massively viral on Instagram and it got close to 6 million views. And from there I was instantly booked out with a waiting list of clients. I had people asking to work with me, people offering to work for me, for free. It was just madness.

Rob Marsh:  Okay. This sounds like the dream for a lot of… I mean, I know there are a lot of people who, maybe like me, think that it’s not the dream to go wild on Instagram. But having 6 million potential clients see you showing up as an authority is definitely, there’s an advantage to it. But like you said, it was crickets for a while. Talk us through that process of how long it took to get to the point where something hit. And then, well, I have specific questions about that video because there’s got to be something that clicks in a different way. But yeah, just go a little bit deeper on that whole process of getting yourself on TikTok as a business, and creating that content.

Chloe Barnes:  Yeah. I actually think it was brilliant for my resilience building in the early days. Because I knew I was doing good work. I was getting great feedback from clients and that was never the problem. And most of my work was coming through via referrals, but I was not unaware of the fact that I knew I was going to have to start figuring out some kind of lead generation method that did not just rely on people referring other people to me. I knew that. Social media has been something that I’ve loved for years. Say what you will about it, you are either a social media person or you’re not, and I’m definitely that kind of person. I just love the opportunities that it creates. I love the communities that you can build on there, and there’s just so much that you can do with it.

So I knew that no matter what, this is where I was going all in. I just thought, “You know what? Okay, it’s going to be empty for a while. It’s going to be crickets. You just gotta push through it.” So I was just focusing on being consistent, rather than getting lots of attention. I think that’s what actually helped me more in the beginning, is because focusing on consistency over trying to do well, allowed me to get better just by practicing. So I was getting comfortable on camera while everyone else was still too nervous to show up and put their faces out there. And then when reels launched on Instagram, I was repurposing my content from TikTok over to Instagram and it just let me take off instantly, and it was so much easier.

Rob Marsh:  How long was the process?

Chloe Barnes:  Before I started seeing any kind of results, it was at least six months.

Rob Marsh:  Okay. Yeah, that’s a long time to be patient with something that doesn’t feel like it’s working. Were you showing up every day, a couple times a week? What did that look like?

Chloe Barnes:  Oh look, it was probably, I’d say three to five times a week. Being realistic, I couldn’t be producing and putting stuff out there every single day. I feel like, if I was to start from scratch, knowing what I know now, yes, I would absolutely double down and be putting out two to three videos a day, but that’s only because I’m now comfortable enough to be okay with not being perfect. But in the early days, I wasn’t able to be that kind of consistent, so I just focused on reducing the friction between me and the publisher, and just making it happen in whatever way was natural for me.

Kira Hug:  So many questions. Okay, I’m going to jump forward to knowing what you know today, what would you do if you were starting today? And you’re like, “Okay, I know I need to be visible on social media, I see these things working for other people.” Where would you jump in today? What would you focus on?

Chloe Barnes:  I would focus on serving people first. There is so much to be said for showing up, delivering value and expecting nothing of it. Because when you do that… And that is what I’ve pivoted towards now, when you do that, expecting nothing of it, you’ll get something anyway. There’s a reciprocal, unspoken arrangement that happens when you start being a hugely valuable person, and it turns up in different ways, but ultimately I think if you give, you will end up receiving, whether or not you’ve planned to or not.

Rob Marsh:  Do you have a process for planning out your content on a weekly or monthly basis where you’re like, “Okay, this week I need to do one tip, and then the second post is going to be a client story.” Do you have anything like that? Or is it just whatever comes to mind, whatever feels right and you just show up and do it?

Chloe Barnes: I have several systems, but I wouldn’t say it’s a rigid strategy. I’m embracing the no niche trend, which sounds weird because I’m obviously a copywriter, but I think building my personal brand has been more effective for me than just being like, “Hey, I’m a copywriter, here’s why you need a copywriter, here’s why…” So I have basically a massive bank of content ideas, things that come to me when I’m scrolling through my feeds. Whenever I think of something and I go, “Oh actually yeah, I really should make a post about that.” Whenever something annoys me when I’m scrolling through social media, I’m like, “Actually, I want to address this,” and I’ll make a note of it.

Usually when I make a note of posts, it’s for things like carousels or specific types of graphics, because my rule for myself now is if I get an idea, I should be trying to film it in the moment, in that… Because I’m at home all the time, I’ve got to use that. So if I get an idea for a video, I try and film it on the spot because nothing captures the energy of the moment quite like filming something as soon as you get the idea for it. And it’s made my content so much better. Honestly, it’s an underrated tip.

Kira Hug:  Okay. I’d love to hear more about what is working today. What is working on TikTok? What’s not working? Well, let’s just start there.

Chloe Barnes:  That’s actually a really hard question because what is working at the moment is exactly what I just described, which is the energetic, in the moment. You’ve had an idea and it’s like you’re just vlogging your day. There’s a rise of the no niche creator on TikTok that’s happening at the moment, where people are actively rejecting overly stylized, overly edited videos, because they feel inaccessible, and people aren’t responding to that well because it feels like a thinly veiled ad. So the easier you can make your content, the more authentic it is, the more it can feel like a conversation between you and your best friend over a coffee, the more you’re going to find people who resonate with your content. And the people who I see who are growing exponentially overnight, are all doing that right now.

Rob Marsh:  While we’re talking about what’s working, let’s talk about that post with 6 million views. I guess let’s call that the inflection point, or maybe… I don’t know, there’s probably a better name for it. But what did that post do in particular that you hadn’t been doing before? Or why do you think it went viral when all of the other content was slow in getting traction?

Chloe Barnes:  Yeah. That one, it was musical, it was polarizing. Had strong reactions from people. People either loved it or they really hated it, and I got a fair amount of hate along with the love, which that’s the risk you take when you’re pinning your business on content creation. But I think it came at the right time as well. Instagram was really looking for engaging videos to be pushing out with their new feature. So it was a combination of factors.

I would say that there was a fair amount of luck involved in that. I happened to be in the right time at the right place, with the right look, and the right content for what they were looking to push. So there was a fair amount of privilege, I’d say that was associated with that as well. It is now harder to have those kinds of results on Instagram. So if you hear that the algorithm is pushing something new and you want to experiment, do it then. When it’s new, that’s great. Give it a go, see what happens. But yeah, it was definitely a combination of it being a polarizing topic and musical. It was fun. Yeah.

Rob Marsh:  I have just one quick follow up on that. With the 6 million people who saw it, how many of those translated into followers and people who would normally come back?

Chloe Barnes:  Okay. I was probably at around about a thousand followers before that, and I went up to about 12,000 within the month.

Kira Hug:  Oh my goodness. No big deal.

Chloe Barnes:  No biggie, it’s fine. Nobody tells you that the scariest videos to post are the ones after you go incredibly viral, just for the record.

Rob Marsh:  Well, that makes a lot of sense. It’s like the second album that flops for the rock band that has the number one singles, so yeah.

Chloe Barnes:  Exactly. You’ve suddenly got eyes watching you and it’s like, “Well, what do I do now? What do these people want from me? I’ve been posting the same stuff for six months.”

Kira Hug:  I mean, let’s dig into that. How did you move forward after that? Did you just stay grounded and say, “I’m going to keep doing the same thing,” or did you have to work through some of that mindset stuff?

Chloe Barnes:  There was very little grounding involved. There was a lot of burying my head in the sand and going, “You know what? I can’t. I’m going to just post and run away from my phone so that I can’t see what happens,” because I knew that if I was obsessively watching my notifications, it was just not going to happen. And the other thing that I didn’t realize, when you go viral, like properly viral like that, you can’t use your phone. The app becomes unusable, so you can’t interact with the people that you have been interacting with for six months, in any kind of meaningful way, for a good month after you have a viral video, because you just can’t see what they’re talking to you about. I had literally hundreds and hundreds of DMs, thousands of notifications every hour. I just physically couldn’t keep up with it, so it was a case of, “I’m coming on here to scream into the void and I’m going to leave.”

Kira Hug:  Okay. Well yeah, and how do you deal with that today, with just being able to turn things off? Because I know it’s something that I struggle with. I like the idea of doing it and tapping in, posting, maybe engaging for a little bit because you’re supposed to do that, but then I need to be able to shut that door and I struggle to do that once I’m putting content out there. I want to know how it’s received. I want to know who’s liking it. How do you manage that?

Chloe Barnes:  It’s still a work in progress, yes. Look, it’s really challenging because there’s a sense that you need to always be on and be accountable to people who depend on you for advice and support. It’s not just your friends and family that are following you on social media, it’s potential clients and people who might want to work with you, and people you have important business partnerships with. So there’s this whole ecosystem that you have to be able to set a boundary for. Quiet mode is a new thing that’s come up on Instagram where you can enable it and it will physically hold back every notification until you turn it off, so you will suddenly get all of your notifications at once when you switch it back on. But the thing I love about it is it does not notify you of anything until you have decided you’re ready to receive them.

I would actually start using that because when you’ve got it enabled, it tells people that you are using it so they don’t just think you’re ignoring them or leaving them unread. It tells them, “Hey, she’s not accepting messages right now. Your message will be delivered when she turns this back on.” So I would use that. But until then I have to baby myself a little bit and make myself leave my phone in another room, turn on airplane mode, do not disturb, all that jazz. Literally whatever works to get it out of your line of sight is probably the best thing.

Rob Marsh:  While we’re talking about this, can we talk a little bit about dealing with haters, the negative comments? Did you just ignore them? Do you reply to them? I think this is, especially for women more than men, something goes popular, you get a lot of hate. Some that’s very inappropriate. Talk a little bit about how you dealt with that.

Chloe Barnes:  Didn’t always deal with it super well.

Rob Marsh:  Okay, let’s get into those details. I want to hear about the not super well.

Chloe Barnes:  Oh look, they say don’t feed trolls, but sometimes you just want to feed them just a little bit. So you occasionally don’t get caught on your best moment so you might respond with something really snarky. After a while, like when you get to the 50th, 100th hate comment, you’re just like, after a while, “You know what? Screw you guys. I’ve had enough. I’m just going to tell you where to go.” I mean, I did that a few times. Eventually I was just like, “Hey, if you don’t like it, feel free to keep scrolling. You can just go along with your day, you don’t have to stop in here and spend your time engaging with my content because that’s probably going to bring more of me into your feed. So well done you.”

But no, I mean, knowing what I know now, having been able to… I’ve had a fair few more viral videos since then, so I’m fine now to just be like, “Meh, whatever. Just ignore it.” If it gets malicious, there’s now words that you can block from appearing on your comments and they go into this little hidden moderation space. I think that really helps if you find certain things triggering or if people are determined to attack you for one specific thing, which they can. Sometimes they’ll attack you for your… I’ve had people attack me for my makeup, my hair, my outfits. This is not the place for makeup tips. If you’re looking for that kind of stuff, I’m not that person. But yeah, you just got to find your own way of just ignoring them, basically. Because you can’t feed into it too much otherwise it becomes this whole big thing. You just got to focus on the people who are showing you support because there’s a lot of them.

Rob Marsh:  Let’s jump in and just talk about a couple of things that Chloe’s been mentioning. So Jill, I would love to start with anything that stood out to you from this first half of the episode. What caught your interest?

Jill Wise:  Obviously Sweden. I think that it’s really interesting too, that she said that she applied for these things after a couple glasses of wine, my kind of girl. And just going all in with them and deciding to try to start that travel blog, and not holding back on these things that maybe would seem kind of… I don’t know, people might judge, right? But she just goes all in on those and she doesn’t seem to care what other people think and just is very much herself. I really liked that.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, every time we have a guest that talks about traveling to somewhere, that always catches my attention as well, just because I think that’s one of my, not necessarily hobbies, but one of the things that really drives me and just learning about the world. But that’s not the only way to do that. I think really the thing here is that Chloe was opening herself up to new experiences, trying out stuff without really… I mean, just kind of crazy stuff in some ways. Not having plans moving forward, just embracing the magic that can happen. And I think travel is so great for that because you put yourself in a new situation, surrounded by totally new people, sometimes new foods, different currencies. And because of all of the newness and unfamiliarity, it creates something magic. Obviously it led Chloe to a travel blog, but for anyone, it can lead to new business ideas, new relationships, all kinds of stuff.

Jill Wise:  I think too, even though she’s doing these things that might seem wild or unfamiliar, like you said, she still seems really strategic about it, how she was transitioning away from her 9:00 to 5:00. Yes, she’s jumping all into these things, but she’s doing it in a really smart way, I think.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, I mean obviously I asked her about that and that was something that was huge for me as well, and I think is really worth hitting on again. So many people just quit the job and think, “I’m going to go all in on copywriting,” without a plan, without a lot of clients lined up. And this business isn’t exactly easy. It’s hard enough to help people get results with the copy that we create, but then also on top of that, going out and finding a long line of clients. So having a 9:00 to 5:00 or having some other kind of runway, savings in the bank, whatever that is, that allows you to be able to grow slowly or at your own pace, whatever that is, is so important. And something that, as I watch a lot of copywriters who are just like, “Yeah, screw the 9:00 to 5:00, I’m done with it, I’m going all in.” I’m like, “Well, yes, for sure, but maybe hold onto the job for three or four months until you’ve built up a client roster,” or something like that.

Jill Wise:  Yeah, or just prepare for it, like you said, savings or something. Because going all in, it adds all of this pressure, and then if you have that pressure, you might not perform. And yes, these things can be easy once you figure it out, but in the beginning it’s definitely a challenge to figure out where to get clients. So I think that she went about this in a very intelligent way and it seems that this is a trend for everything she does. Looking at the six month runway for being consistent and showing up before seeing the results, that takes hard work, but it’s smart.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah. I mean when you’re talking about the six months before we see results, we’re talking actually about posting all of that content on TikTok. And to me, I admire her so much for that because yeah, I’ll start to post content and after three or four weeks if it’s not getting traction, like, “Man, is this worth it?” I mean, it literally takes months of effort sometimes, in a channel, to start seeing results. I think some people may argue that six months is short, that Chloe got lucky with a couple of viral videos, which you mentioned earlier that you’ve deconstructed. maybe we should go into some of that as well, like what made them viral? Because some of her viral stuff is really cool, the ones with thousands and thousands. But six months to hit that first viral video and then she’s had more success since then, is a long time, and it’s a lot of patience. So yeah, again goes back to thinking very strategically about what she’s doing in her business and her approach.

Jill Wise:  Yeah. Not everybody has that kind of patience or discipline to push through, perseverance. I think that’s impressive.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah. Let’s talk about those videos though. You watched the videos. I actually did the same thing. As soon as we got off of the interview, I’m like, “Oh, I got to find that first video and see what it was.” What were your thoughts about her viral videos?

Jill Wise:  First of all, she’s funny. Chloe, I want to be your friend. If you’re listening to this, can we be friends? Second, the ones that had the most virality seemed like they were a perfect combination of being relatable, but then they were also catching on the trending sounds at the time. Which I know is really hard, but the relatability piece is the most important, and then catching on that sound, and then riding that wave, it seemed like a combination of that. Then also just talking to a slightly different audience. I noticed that the ones that were the biggest, the most views, they were actually talking to other freelancers too. So if I could, I would ask her how that works with her strategy of getting clients. I’m curious, but that’s what I noticed so far.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah. Some of them have original music, some really cool tunes with a nice hook. So as you got into them, the hook caught your attention, but the music, the story that she’s telling in the music keeps you there. I think that, I mean from a copywriting standpoint, it’s not just a post, but it’s a really nice piece of content that’s structured in a way that keeps you on the page and that makes it shareable too. You’re like, “Oh, this is funny,” or, “This is really relatable,” like you said, “I need to share it with my friends.” And that kind of stuff starts to make you take off.

Jill Wise:  Exactly. Yeah. The storytelling is a big piece of it because even in short form content, we have to tell stories.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah. And then the impact of going viral. Some people don’t ever want to be viral, and that’s fine. Some people only want to be viral, which is maybe a pursuit of something that’s beyond doing every single time, unless you’re MrBeast or someone like that. But just that increase in an audience, going from say 1,000 to 12,000 viewers in a single week, that kind of stuff I think really impacts your mindset. She talked a bit about that, what it did. Suddenly you have all these extra eyes on you, watching you, and it’s like the pressure ratchets up a ton. And just being able to even deal with that is something that I’d never really thought about, as I post content, what would happen if now 200,000 people are listening to this podcast instead of the regular five or 6,000 who listen to it? That’s totally different… I mean, that’s going from a large conference room, a really large conference room to a stadium, and it’s a different kind of audience and a different level of pressure. She’s done it really well.

Jill Wise:  I agree. There’s definitely a mindset piece for any time that you level up in your business, whether it’s getting a bigger audience, making more money, just you set the bar higher and then the stakes are higher. And we don’t realize that there’s going to be a whole other set of challenges when we get there. We think going viral is the solution. Or if you just have a bunch more eyes on it, but then you’re met with a whole other set of challenges, and it seems like she’s navigated that really well.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, for sure. For sure. Just as a last note, talking about dealing with the trolls, the haters. Again, something else she’s done really well, I think. I would be really tempted to get in some kind of a flame war, push people back. But there’s this interesting thing that’s happened, we’ve seen it with some of the ads that we’ve run on Facebook, but even negative comments spread the message. And she mentioned she was talking as she responds back to people, it’s like, “The more you engage with my content, the more you’re going to see it.” And that is true of almost all of the algorithms that are out there. So even haters posting comments…Yeah, there’s some stuff that shouldn’t be out there. If it’s racist or sexist or what, that stuff is bad for sure. But even those comments bring more people to see your content, and so the haters who want to make sure that they put you into your place or try to shut you down, are actually doing the exact opposite. Doesn’t necessarily mean that you want to talk to them or encourage them, because you don’t want that negative energy, but it also can help you.

Jill Wise:  Yeah. What’s that old saying? Even bad public publicity is still publicity? So it’s definitely working.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, and obviously it’s working for her.

Jill Wise:  Let’s go back to the interview with Chloe and talk about the basics of content creation.

Kira Hug:  I want to go back to some of the more technical aspects of content creation, even just the basic stuff. This is an area that I think I have not done well, even as a brand, Copywriter Club has not done as well. So if I’m sitting down and I’m like, “Okay, this is something I want to focus on in 2023,” what are some guiding principles we should think about? You mentioned consistency, you mentioned giving generously and not asking for anything in exchange, which I think is helpful. What else? Not scripting it and making it too polished at this point. What else should we be thinking about? Is there a length of time? What else should I think about as I jump into it?

Chloe Barnes:  For me, I think that the quality of your content is much more about what you’re saying and who you’re saying it for, rather than hacking your way to a better audience. The people who focus too much on trends, which I was guilty of in the beginning, the people who focus too much on algorithm hacks and tweaks, and this is what Instagram’s doing… If you focus on the content, it will ultimately serve you much better because you’re speaking to an audience of people who are going to be helped by what you’re saying. You can serve your audience while still selling. Let’s be realistic, we are in sales, so I think being transparent about that is by far the way to go. Because I mean, realistically, we’re all small business owners. There is an element of, I guess, transaction to our content. Ultimately we are putting it out there in the hopes that it will help us run our business. You’ve got to own that.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, for sure. What are the specific tools you use when you are creating your videos?

Chloe Barnes:  I don’t do the whole best practice thing. You know what I use to film my videos? I use TikTok.

Rob Marsh:  Okay. This is actually important because I think a lot of people do get hung up on the tools, and they’re like, “Okay, I can’t do it until the kit’s right, until I’ve got the right camera, I’ve got the right mic, I’ve got the halo light and all of that.” So yeah, I would love to hear what is the basic setup, especially if you’re not using the big, recommended setups.

Chloe Barnes:  For starters, I did all of my content for at least a year with nothing more than my phone and a window, that was it. I used TikTok-

Rob Marsh:  The window for light, is what you’re saying-

Kira Hug:  The window is key. The window is key, yeah.

Chloe Barnes:  Yes, because I did not have a ring light, I was too cheap to buy one.

Rob Marsh:  Talking my language here.

Kira Hug:  I think they’re $50 now.

Chloe Barnes:  I now have one because I realized that I needed to be… My office is not the most well lit of places, and when you’re doing podcasts and things, you need to… But I actually made a TikTok about this. My philosophy is do not pay to get started, pay to upgrade. So if you are waiting for the perfect conditions to start making content for your business, you are never going to make content for your business. You just need to start. You need to start with what you have now. Because if you can start with what you have now and start to get stuff out there and make it work, paying to upgrade your existing set